[This is part 2 of a story. Part 1 is here]

We spent that day very gloomy, with the prospect of a confrontation with the Principal looming large on our heads because we had lesser than the required 75% attendance in one subject. An encounter with the principal was not going to be a pleasant affair, and it would probably turn out like this:

Principal: “Welcome! Welcome! I hear you have not managed to get 75% attendance?”
Us: “Sir, sorry sir, but I had a brain surgery and Chitradeep had severe amnesia. We couldn’t come to college because of our medical condition sir. Here are our medical certificates!”
Principal: “Ha! A brain surgery and severe amnesia? That’s not a good enough reason to miss college. You are going to pay for it!”
Us: “Sir.. please sir… please…”
Principal: “You will write ‘I will not miss College 7 million times’ and promise your soul to eternally be my slave. Muhahahahahahaa! (evil mogambo laugh)”

Thinking of this sent shivers down our spines, and I started to panic. I wanted to get out of this desperately, but there seemed to be no hope left. Chitradeep, on the other hand, seemed strangely calm about the whole thing.

Me: “Dude! What are we going to do?”
Chitradeep: “Don’t worry man, I’m going to fix this.”
Me: “How?!?”
Chitradeep: “Look, the attendance doesn’t get sent to the University until the end of this week. If we can somehow steal the attendance register and modify some records, we should be fine.”
Me: “Are you out of your mind?!? How on earth are you going to get hold of the register? It’s impossible, it’ll never work.”
Chitradeep: “Trust me, this will work”

How could this plan work? There was a better chance of our Principal baking us a pineapple cake than there was of this plan working! But Chitradeep’s confidence surprised me, and I knew that he’d pulled stunts like these before so I went along with it. It turns out that there were a couple of other guys in our class with the exact same problem, and so we teamed up. That evening, we had our first strategy meeting, where this plan was hatched:

Step 1: Chitradeep and I were to sit in the first bench.
Step 2: The other 2 guys (who would be sitting in the last bench) would call the prof and ask some “doubts” to distract him.
Step 3: Chitradeep would steal the register.
Step 4: Success!

Fortunately for us humans, the presence of a “plan” is very reassuring, however impossible it might be to achieve. Satisfied that we had a “plan”, all of us slept soundly that night. The next morning came, and the first class was going to be Computer Science, where our master plan was going to be executed.

Chitradeep and I took up our positions in the front bench, right at the battlefront. Being so close to the firing line was definitely dangerous, but one has to be brave during missions like these.

Soon, the Prof walks into the class carrying our target – the attendance register. He absent mindedly puts it on the table, just a few feet away from us. Oh! I could reach over and grab it this instant. But the Prof is standing right next to the table, looking at the entire class. He’s looking to locate the usual trouble makers, no doubt, but we are just below his radar this time – Sitting in the first bench. The prof has an enormous belly that protrudes out that sometimes makes me wonder if his center of gravity is outside his body. But this is not the time to think about these things, the belly is right now making us invisible to him.

Suddenly, the Prof shouts out:

“What is the difference between a packet and a frame?”

Oh, no! This is going to be one of those “firing” classes, where the Prof asks random questions pointedly, and if someone can’t answer, he asks them to get out of the class. Usually everyone pretends to look busy and hide their heads into the textbook to avoid being called up to answer the question, but this time, it’s different. A hand goes up from the back bench, apparently a volunteer to answer the question. Who would do a stupid thing like that?

I look back, and see it is one of the guys in our plan. Oh, no! He’s going to create a distraction, and he’s going to sacrifice himself to give us an opportunity. Oh! What a noble thought! He’s as good as dead, but hopefully he can stall the Professor long enough for us to get a shot at the register. The Professor is surprised some one is willing to answer, but that only brings a big smile to his face – He’s going to massacre the poor lamb in front of the whole class, and he’s going to enjoy it!

Prof: “Yes… My dear, fellow. You think you can answer?”

The dude from the back bench gets up. The Professor is slowly moving towards the center of the class, away from us. But it’s still to risky for us to go in now, if the prof just looks this way, we’ll be caught red handed.

Dude: “The difference between a packet and a frame…”

He is purposefully answering slowly, trying to draw the professor in. The Prof has reached the middle of the classroom by now, and is standing at the central aisle.

Dude: “… are rather simple. Namely, they have some structural qualities that create some…”

Chitradeep leans forward to judge how far the register is for him. He can almost reach it. The Prof has moved up 2 paces, just beyond the first bench.

Dude: “…similar differences are remarkably similar. That is to say, there are similar differences between the two…”

The Professor is walking very very slowly. He’s just out of direct sight from us. This could be the chance. Chitradeep moves to the edge of the bench. The Prof has to move just one more step forward…

Dude: “…and they are, as namely, in the following order, starting with the first difference, which is…”

The Prof takes a step forward. Chitradeep, in a flash, gets up, extends his arm towards the attendance register. He is now fully stretched, and his hand just about reaches the register. He picks it up in one smooth motion and recoils his entire body along with his outstretched hand to come back to his original position, with the register firmly held in his hand. The entire class has seen this brilliant gymnastic maneuver by Chitradeep, and he would have received a standing ovation from the class had the Prof not been there. The dude, who’s been successfully stalling and drawing in the prof, heaves a silent sigh of relief.

Dude: “…that the packet is not a frame because the frame is not really a packet.”
Prof: “What? Are you telling a story from The Mahabharata? Get out!”

Chitradeep is so pleased that he has managed to steal the register, that he doesn’t notice that the Prof has cut up the poor dude and ordered him out of the class. It hits him when the Prof makes a 180-degree turn to return to the front of the class. Chitradeep looks at the register. There it is, he has successfully stolen it. But now what? What are we going to do with the stolen register?

The Prof has turned around and is heading back towards the center of the classroom. He has only a couple of steps before he comes to the front, and he’ll have to turn towards us afterwards. And Chitradeep is sitting there holding the attendance register.

Oh, this is definitely going to end in disaster.

Apparently, we got so excited about stealing the register that we forgot to think about what we’re going to do after we stole it. That’s the trouble with plans – There is always something that you didn’t think of.

The Prof has a big smile on his face, no doubt pleased about his latest kill. He takes one more step and is now almost at the front of the class. Chitradeep is still holding the register. That’s it. We’re as good as dead.

Just as the Prof reaches the front of the class and turns towards us, Chitradeep executes another super-swift maneuver that truely shocks the class. He already has the full attention of the class because of his previous maneuver. Chitradeep, in one fluid motion, lifts the register up, turns it 90-degrees with his left hand, and with one smooth jerk, flings it, horizontally, like a bullet, towards the window. He has thrown it with the precision of a Zen master throwing a sword, and the register, flying flat towards the window, passes neatly through the bars of the window, and disappears cleanly out of sight, out of the class, and out of the 3rd floor window.

The class lets out a collective gasp. The Prof notices the gasp.

Prof: “Yes… That should teach you students to think before answering questions. If you’d have studied Section 2, Chapter 12, Paragraph 13 on Page 123, you would have known the difference between a packet and a frame!”

Everyone is processing what just happened.
The Attendance register just flew out of the window.
That means that the prof doesn’t have the attendance register.
That means the prof is not going to be able to send the attendance records to the University.
But the prof has to send the records anyway, otherwise he’ll get fired.
That means that prof will have to create a new register.
That means that everyone will now get full attendance, because there is no old register.

And that is exactly what happened. The Prof and the rest of the staff were too uptight to admit that the attendance register was missing. How can it disappear? It must have been that careless Computer Science professor who must have left it in the parking lot or somewhere. In the absence of the attendance records, all the students got full attendance the in the subject.

All’s well that ends well. In this case, all was particularly well because all the college students got the pleasure of eating Bhel-Puri neatly wrapped in sheets from an attendance record that had mysteriously fallen from the sky, right next to the Bhel-Puri guy’s cart. I can tell you, that was some of the best bhel-puri I’ve ever had.

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